Is Veganism a Matter of Opinion?

I had a conversation with a good friend this week. I like and respect her but she is not vegan. During the course of our discussion I mentioned that if she read the evidence supporting animal rights, it is highly unlikely that she would not become vegan. She contradicted me, saying that I was entitled to my opinion on veganism just as she was entitled to her opinion, which disagreed with veganism.

Veganism, of course, is not a mere matter of opinion. It is the moral conviction that it is wrong to unnecessarily harm and kill other animals based on facts: the fact that animal use by humans is unnecessary; the fact of their sentient capacity to feel; the fact of their conscious awareness of themselves and their lives; the fact that they have rights which we violate when we are not vegan; and the fact that they matter morally.

Vegans do not necessarily have very different moral values to anyone else. Most people acknowledge that companion animals feel. They would not unnecessarily harm or kill a cat or a dog. In fact, most people in the Western World find the practice of eating cats and dogs in some countries abhorrent. But it is no more abhorrent than our own practice of eating the bodies of mammals, birds and fishes. Rationally, we must at least extend our moral concern for companion animals to all the animals who share salient characteristics with them.

How Vegans Became Vegan

This recognition, that we share the salient characteristic of sentience, is how vegans become vegan. We don’t decide to eat plants or stop wearing leather as a result of some whimsical figary. We become aware of the fact living as a non-vegan is predicated on systematic violence that is so abhorrent that most of us are unable to witness it. In fact, living as a non-vegan is predicated on a deep-seated form of oppression by our human species that dates to our domestication of other specie,s a very short time ago in the history of our evolution: a form of oppression, bullying, and exploitation for profit that has caused the most despicable violence against the largest number of gentle, sentient, harmless, innocent beings in the history of life as we know it. It dawns on us that living in this way contradicts how we feel and think about other life forms, and about ourselves.

Most of us flinch from violence. We don’t have to know other animals very well to feel uncomfortable when we see them suffer and die. As vegans and activists who work for their rights, we see them accurately, as beings who share our instinct to avoid pain and stay alive. This is not a fanciful or anthropomorphic view of other lives. Animal sentience is a simple scientific fact. As a consequence, vegans live in a way that avoids harming them to the best of our practical ability.

Sentience & Speciesism

We have grown up in speciesist cultures that segregate some animals into a category we care about, and others into a category that doesn’t matter to us, despite the fact that the chickens, pigs, cows, ducks, turkeys, geese, goats, sheep and fishes we eat; the cows, sheep, foxes, minks, and others we wear; the mice, rats and primates we experiment on; and the elephants, tigers and others we use for entertainment, all share our sentient capacity to feel, our cognitive capacity to reason and our will to live. In fact, we operate according to the irrational belief that while the dogs and cats we use as companions are worthy of our moral concern, dogs and cats used in animal experiments or for labour are not.

Our selective acknowledgement of sentience, as well as our lack of courage in acknowledging the harm we inflict as non-vegans, combine with myths sold to us by industries that profit from our continued use of other animals to make veganism appear elusive to the majority. We believe that animal bodies make superior clothing and footwear to those that are man-made and manufactured from plants, completely divorcing ourselves from the violence experienced by the beings whose skin now lines our own. We believe that animal experimentation is necessary for human wellbeing and cosmetic adornment. The most significant myth fed to us by those whose wealth depends on animal exploitation concerns the foods we eat: the myth that animal foods are necessary for human health, and that conditions such as economic status, food intolerance, age, or illness make a plant diet impractical or impossible. Together with lack of accurate information, these myths are sufficient to render veganism as something that is misunderstood and a way of living that is still practiced by a minority.

Misinformation & Myths

The industries that profit from animal use fight hard to keep these myths alive and ensure the continued demand for animals lives and bodies. They also ensure that the multitude of intersectional benefits of veganism for world peace, the economy, human health, farmers and other workers, the environment, and indeed the entire biosphere in which all living beings exist and interact, are shrouded in doubt and confusion.

It is because of this misinformation that some vegans are so vocal about the facts. Our common experience, once we become vegan, is relief that we no longer have to pretend that how we live is harmless. The common refrain among almost all vegans is ‘this is the best decision of my life’; ‘I wish I had known earlier’; ‘If I had known I’d have been vegan years ago’.

Why Vegans Talk about Veganism & Animal Rights

As a result, we provide educational information to our friends, family and colleagues, and, in the case of activists and education campaigns such as Go Vegan World, to the public. We don’t provide this information out of a trivial desire to damage or upscuttle how everyone eats, lives and earns a living. We provide it because we believe it is in the interest of the public good. We provide it because we believe, most sincerely, that everyone is entitled to the information we learned that prompted our decision to stop exploiting others and be vegan. Most vegans are convinced of the fact that this information is a human right to know as well as a human responsibility to act on.

For more information on the facts of animal use and the imperative to be vegan, please refer to the following information and associated links.

Go Vegan World is a Public Vegan Advertising Campaign run by Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary, Ireland.

Go Vegan World is dedicated to the complete cessation of human use of other animals through vegan education.

The site links to other websites, individuals, organisations, and media but Go Vegan World does not necessarily endorse or agree with all of their material. Go Vegan World explicitly does not promote content that is not vegan; that promotes reduced animal use; gradual elimination of animal products; vegetarianism; welfare reform, a compromised representation of non-humans; violent direct action; or any behaviour that is designed to undermine and harm other animals and other rights based activists acting on their behalf. Go Vegan World supports critical examination of our theories and methods of advocacy; but it does not condone exclusion, attack, bullying or personal criticism, or commandeering of other activists’ advocacy efforts.

Go Vegan World is not responsible for the manner in which any person volunteering, for or in any way associated with our work, represents that work in public.

Go Vegan World literature, and the Go Vegan World Guide, are available for like-minded animal rights activism. The campaign ad material is NOT available for use by other organisations. Years of research and work have gone into making the Go Vegan World campaign the unique and strong message that it is. It is inspired and informed by individuals at Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary. Plagiarising the work of Go Vegan World or asking to do so, negates the animals' role in their own campaign and does them a disservice. So, while we are happy to advise and help others choose their own content, please do not ask to replicate ours. Thank you for your understanding.

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Some campaign literature, such as the Vegan Guide, is available to vegan educators and animal rights activists. The campaign literature cannot be altered. The literature is permitted for use only in the context of vegan education that calls for complete and immediate cessation of animal use. The material is not to be used in conjunction with single issue campaigns, or by activists who promote the human benefits of veganism over veganism as an ethical obligation to other animals, activists who promote vegetarianism, Meatless Mondays, reduced animal use, or gradual elimination of animal use. It is not the intention of Go Vegan World to criticise other activists. However, if our methods of advocacy are radically different, please do not use Go Vegan World material to campaign for something that we regard as being of less significance to the animals whose freedom from oppression we strive for than vegan campaigning.

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Go Vegan World is inspired, informed and guided by the residents of Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary. It is their campaign and as a result it is animal focused and directed at non-vegans in an effort to move us closer to a vegan world.

The information provided on human health is not designed to replace medical advice. If you have health concerns that you think may be related to your diet, please consult a doctor or registered dietitian.